The presenter was explaining that in each discipline, there were a set of vocabulary words that students had to master to continue learning on the next level.  She said that just giving a list of vocabulary words with definitions, and asking the students to learn, was NOT an effective teaching method, but the following were:

• Ask students to restate in their own words
• Using pictures or video
• Repetition

It struck me that, as coaches, most of us do this all the time!  In our discipline (football, basketball, softball, etc) we have a “vocabulary” that our athletes must master.  Most of us use ALL of the recommended effective ways to teach the “vocabulary” of our system… and the better and sooner we teach our “vocabulary” the sooner our athletes are ready to function in our program.

This vocabulary includes basic words that are important for athletes to understand early if they are to progress in our programs… words and terms such as, line of scrimmage, stance, hash marks, block, etc.  Can you imagine trying to teach more advanced words, terms and plays without your athletes having an understanding of this basic vocabulary?

All of our programs also have a set of more advanced, words, terms and phrases that our specific to our system.  We talk to our student-athletes all the time about “learning our language”.   The sooner they learn to speak the language of our system, the sooner they can play… they must know and understand our vocabulary…. Force, 3 technique, single high safety, lane of ball, etc

So how do we teach these concepts… this vocabulary?  Using the proven effective techniques the presenter described.

For example, when teaching our concept of “FORCE”

• A written definition of FORCE is given in the playbook:  “The defender responsible for FORCE will re-establish the sideline as close to the ball carrier as possible.”
• We include a diagram of FORCE in our playbook.
• 

• We orally explain the concept of FORCE using similar words and phrases – “You must FORCE the play to go inside of you”, “Set the Edge”, “Nothing gets outside of you”, “You need to squeeze down the play, eliminating a big inside pipeline”
• We demonstrate on the field how a defender would FORCE a perimeter run play.
• We show video examples of FORCE being executed correctly.
• We quiz the players, asking them to explain the term FORCE.
• We check for understanding daily using film at practice.

Quickly, most of our new athletes understand completely the concept of FORCE, and all of our veteran players are ready to incorporate their understanding into more advanced defensive concepts and coverages.

I have never seen a great coach that was not a great teacher…. teaching vocabulary, or teaching character, or teaching a specific skill

Great coaches are great teachers… period.

Thanks again to PrepsKC for running this column both online and in their weekly print magazine. If you get a chance to go and visit their site and “Like” this post, I would appreciate it!

You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you.. Don’t Believe It!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

• You can read the post at this link – Film Grading Tool
• Download the Excel Template at this link – Film Grade Template
• Or watch the video below to see how to use the Template.

It is easy to then use the data on this spreadsheet to determine what your coaching emphasis needs to be for the upcoming week.  It is a great tool to give the athletes, which helps regarding accountability… both yours as a coach, and theirs as a player in your program.

I have also had serious internal dialogues with myself about the value of watching the entire game, either as a team, offense or defense, or as a position group.  Is it really the best use of 60-90 minutes having your entire position group, starters, subs, role players, and non-players, watch the entire film?

Here is another method that we have used in the past, and which I believe has merit.  Every position coach, after grading the film, determines what their players did well, and what they need to work on to improve as a position group.  By using the film grading template, or something similar, this process is relatively easy.  Once the area(s) of emphasis has been decided, the coach then makes a 20 play (or so) cutup, showing 10 plays that his position group played well, using correct technique, great effort, angle, pad level, etc.  He discusses how these factors led to a positive outcome on the play.  He also includes 10 plays that highlight mistakes (ideally the most common mistakes of the game, and what they will be emphasizing during the next week) and explains how these missteps led to problems on those plays.

The position coach can easily focus, teach, and explain to his position group the main emphasis for the upcoming week by showing these clips… and can do so in a time efficient manner.   It becomes easy for the coach to say, and show, “When we do things right, here is the outcome, when we make mistake _______ , here is the result.”

The players will still have the film grade sheets, and can watch the video on their own to see how they played individually.  It is another example of “flipping” the traditional classroom.  For other posts about this concept see:

• Flipping the Practice Field
• Defensive Game Planning – Flipped Coaching
• AFM article by Coach Grabowski on Flipped Coaching

Have a good Labor Day … don’t work too hard…. ironic, isn’t it?

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

In this article Coach Grabowski pulls together resources from Urban Myer, (Urban Meyer – On Edge Coaching ), Coach Jason Hahnstadt, (The Flipped Coach – John Hahnstadt), some of my examples (Making a Screen Recording and Defensive Game Planning – Flipped Coaching) as well as many of his own ideas and implementations.  Additionally, Coach Grabowski includes examples of using technology for review and assessment with your players.

The article also has information and links to a great “flipped learning” resource from John Bergman – Turning Learning on its Head.

Coach Grabowski’s  article is the single best piece I have seen written on this topic.  It has video, practical examples, links to resources, and a narrative that excited me as to the possible uses for integrating this into my (and my colleagues) coaching bag of tricks.

The article itself is an excellent example of integrating technology into teaching and coaching. It is a must read…. really must SEE because of the many video examples and hyperlinks in the piece… article for 21^st century teachers and coaches.

Again, the article for the American Football Monthly online supplemental– Making an Impact With Flipped Coaching.

I cannot emphasize this enough…. if you are a coach wanting to learn cutting edge teaching and coaching methods, read Coach Grabowski’s blog – Coach and Coordinator, and follow him on Twitter @CoachKGrabowski.

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

“Well, back in my day we…..  “ ,  fill in the blank.

But, the game HAS changed.  Recent rule changes, and discussions at all levels from Pop Warner to the NFL regarding contact, concussions, and practice restrictions have made it necessary for coaches to adapt.  Outcomes of pending lawsuits in the NFL regarding concussions and head injuries will trickle down to all levels of play.  I am not saying these discussions and rule changes are bad, but as coaches we may need to change some of our “time worn” ways of doing things.

To all of us, the safety of our players is paramount.  Most of us took the “head” out of our tackling vernacular years ago.  We must continue to teach safe tackling.  But, here is the rub… the conflict… the thin line we have to walk.  We ALL want to teach safe tackling, but we also ALL want to teach effective tackling.  There is a physical nature to the game that we have to prepare for.  We have the responsibility to prepare our athletes, mentally and physically, for the games they will be playing in on Friday nights.  If we have no contact (or the 5 minutes a day the players in the NFL will be getting) will our players be ready for the full speed, physical action on Fridays.

It will be up to us to become even better teachers, and even more efficient with our practice time (see a previous post, Practice, Not a Minute to Spare).  It will be up to us as coaches to come up with new ways to practice and prepare our athletes physically and mentally.  I will share one idea that we have used for years to help our athletes get quality “mental reps” during the week.

This works best in a large area with an overhead projector.  Often on a Thursday, if we wanted to limit the physical part of practice (during a collegiate work week) we would assemble our defense in a meeting room or on the auditorium stage.  We would arrange 11 desks (or chairs) facing the screen, roughly in our defensive alignment… 4 desks up front for the DL, 3 behind those for the LB’s, and 2 desks outside for the corners, and 2 behind for the safeties.

Our defensive starters would take their place in their respective desks, and we would roll video off a script of our opponent’s offense.  We would signal in the front/ stunt/ coverage call we wanted to run, the LB’s would make the call, and everyone would communicate just as they would during an actual play… “Tight” (run strength) call, Down and Distance tendencies, formation checks, etc.  As the play on the screen developed, they would mentally play the play, defeating the block, reading their key, mentally pursuing to the ball carrier, and talking through routes.  We would “play” a series or two, and then sub players into the chairs.  Everyone not in the 11 desks would be in the back getting a mental rep.

We would try to make this as “lifelike” as possible…  similar to the concepts of mental visualization (refer to post, Mental Visualization). We use calls that will be on the call sheet for that week, and communicate down and distance every play.  A large screen with an endzone shot is ideal.  It almost becomes like your players are in a video game, or one of those golf simulators.  We have even done this same thing with no desks or chairs with the athletes standing in their respective positions.  I really believe this type of interactive teaching could be used daily with your scout script to prepare you athletes for practice.  I discussed this, and the concept of “flipped coaching” in a previous post on my blog, Defensive Game Planning – Flipped Coaching.

There is an excellent article on CoachBook detailing Coach John Gagliardi’s approach at St. John’s University, at this link:  Winning With Limited Contact in Practice.  

This will be an ongoing situation we will need to deal with in our changing sport… adequately preparing our athletes, physically and mentally for our weekly contests.  The coaches that are good at adapting and creative in their teaching and coaching methods will have an advantage.

Thanks again to PrepsKC, for featuring this post on their site today!

Good luck to you all as head into this exciting time of the year!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

This will be a quick post listing a few of what I consider essential “new tricks” that I use daily in my coaching and teaching.  Some of these are apps, while others are computer (Mac Book Pro) programs.

Grab

Grab is a resident program on Macs and allows you to grab an image of your entire screen

or a portion.

It comes in handy when capturing telestrated images from Hudl, or individual frames from any video.  It is extremely easy to use…. very intuitive… and places the image on your clipboard where it can be quickly pasted or exported to another program.  There is an explanation of how to do this on a PC at this link:  How to take a screenshot in Microsoft Windows, but I am not sure if this is the only or easiest way to do it on a PC.

QuickTime Player

This, too, is a resident program on Macs.  It allows you to make a screen recording, also known as a screencast (see post, Making a Screen Recording), of anything that is on your computer screen.  It could be a recording of a telestrated Hudl video that you want to imbed in a PowerPoint presentation, or a recording of an animated PowerPoint presentation that you want to put on YouTube.  Whatever action takes place on your screen after beginning a Screen Recording (using QuickTime Player) will be recorded in a video that can be saved, embedded, used in other programs, or sent to the web.

As with Grab, you can record your entire screen

or a portion.

Twitter

I have learned as much the past 6 months following some excellent coaches on Twitter as I have the previous 6 years.  It is a daily virtual clinic!   You can easily connect with coaches, who have varied expertise, to virtually and electronically pick their brains.  I have coaches and teachers who I follow that deliver daily motivational inspirations (@TonyCourville),  challenge me to improve my coaching methods (@CoachKGrabowski), and deliver the latest ideas involving technology and education(@linsgc).  Most blogging coaches will tweet their latest post, so it becomes easy to scroll through the tweets to find the “meat”

Excel

Excel is part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs that is resident on most PC’s, and available for Mac as well.  All of my strength and conditioning weight workouts are Excel workbooks.

I manage workouts for over 300 athletes using the program on these workbooks.  You can read about the workout on my blog, at this post, A Weekly (not weakly!) Workout, and can download the Excel workbook templates here:

• Mac 4 Day a Week Workout
• Mac 3 Day a Week Workout
• Windows 4 Day a Week Workout

About anything that I do with numbers (other than stats and grades… I have separate programs for those) I do on Excel.

Socrative

And this week I will be taking my own advice (see post The Time is Now) and learning how to use the app, Socrative.   Socrative is a smart student response system that allows teachers to engage their classrooms via their own devices… smartphones, laptops, and tablets.  Coach Grabowski has an excellent post describing how to use the system to make your position group meetings more interactive at this link: Another app for interactive position meetings.

Good luck to you all as you head into a new season… and remember…

We Can Do More… our brain is lying to us… Don’t Believe It!

We Can Learn New Tricks!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

• You are getting married (or celebrating an anniversary)
• You are ramping up meeting time with your staff  and/or attending your state Coaching Association football clinic in preparation for the upcoming season.

It is amazing how many of my coaching colleagues have anniversaries this time of the year… the end of July to the first week of August.  It seems we all try to squeeze in one more joyful event before our other love… the grind of the season… begins.  My wife and I got married on a Friday, and we started 2-a-day football practices on the following Monday.  We celebrate our 30^th anniversary this summer.

If you are knee deep in meeting/ clinic time right now, here are a couple of things to chew on.  Right now is the time to expand your comfort zone (see Expanding Our Comfort Zone or Get Uncomfortable) and become comfortable with new technology and/ or new teaching and coaching methods.  Once the season gets going time really is at a premium.  We will have little time to get comfortable with new coaching methods or tools.  If we are not comfortable at that point, we inevitably revert back to coaching and teaching methods that we are more comfortable with.

Here are a couple of relatively easy projects to tackle to get started.  These ideas are from my post Flipping the Practice Field.  You can see how to make a screencast is in my post, Making a Screen Recording.

Drill Screencast

What if you had the most important (or better yet, all!) of your drills for each position group online, described with text, diagramed in an automated PowerPoint presentation, with a telestrated video of YOU explaining the key organizational and coaching points of the drill, and your players demonstrating.  Before you use a drill in a practice, you gave as “homework” to your position group the task of studying this online content for the drill.  How many more reps would you get in that drill during practice, and how much better understanding of the drill would your players have during the course of the year?

Playbook Install

Consider your install days during your pre-season or spring practice sessions.  How much more production could you get out of your meeting and practice time if you had your install lectures already recorded on a screencast.  Prior to your installation of a particular front/ stunt/ or coverage (or of an offensive play) you require as “homework” viewing the screencast of your install lecture of that piece.  How much more efficient could you be in your meeting time (answering specific questions about the install) or how much quicker would you move to actually practicing the piece instead of spending time installing on the field.

Now is the time to do this… to get comfortable with the technology… to get comfortable with a new coaching technique.  It is just like everything else in athletics/ teaching/ life.  The most difficult time is the first time… just getting started (see post Starting) is at times the most difficult thing.  The more you do it, the more comfortable (and easier) it will become

If you are the head coach, challenge yourself and your position coaches to just complete one drill screencast… just one install screencast before your season begins.  If you are a coordinator, challenge the staff on your side of the ball to expand their comfort zone by doing this.  If you are a position coach, take it upon yourself to learn … be a leader (see post Leading Up)!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

Instruction Bang/Time Invested

The bigger the bang, with less time invested, the better.

This is critical when it come to your weekly meeting, prep, and practice time in season… when you are formulating and teaching your weekly game plan.  Today I want to regress a little, and go back to the Weekly Workflow schedule that I discussed last week.  I believe there are a couple of ways to tweak this schedule, utilizing technology to “flip” your meeting time and practice time.

“Flipping” the classroom or practice field refers to concept of using technology to flip the traditional classroom/ meeting time; using online, shared content to provide student-athletes with learning opportunities traditionally reserved for classroom presentations, freeing up that time for more in-depth, hands-on learning opportunities.

Coach Keith Grabowski writes on this topic today with his post, “Flipping the Classroom (Flipped Coaching)”, which previews his upcoming American Football Monthly article on the topic and has links to all of his posts on the subject.

I have written a number of posts on the topic as well and links to most of them can be found at my post, “Flipping the Practice Field”

Looking at our Weekly Schedule for defensive game planning, I believe there are three areas that we will be able to effectively implement technology to flip our meeting and practice time:

• Daily Scripts – Emphasis
• Position Group Reminders
• Position Group Tests

Daily Scripts

As discussed in my post, Defensive Game Planning – Weekly Workflow, we have an emphasis for each day of the week:

• Tuesday – 1^st Down, Second Down, 3^rd and Short
• Wednesday – 3^rd and Medium, 3^rd and Long, XL, Goal Line
• Thursday – Gadget, Review All

On each of those days, we put together our script, pulling directly from Hudl, plays that our opponent has run in those situations, adding our Front/Stunt and Coverage to the script.  In the past we have used these scripts for three purposes :

1. To print so our staff knows the plays/calls during team time
2. We print scout team cards via Hudl directly from the script
3. Occasionally we review the video after practice.

We already pull this script and make a Play List on Hudl each of these days.  The logical next step is to have the expectation that each of our players will have watched and studied this Play List, on their own device, as many times as they want, prior to practice time.  This should reinforce daily what our emphasis is, and give our players an idea prior to practice what those plays and formations look like, what fronts/ stunts/ coverage we will be running, and ultimately should speed up their reaction/ recognition time when practice actually begins.   This addition has a huge upside regarding the Instruction Bang/ Time Invested formula.  The only additional time investment is making sure the script is completed and Play List posted on Hudl in time for your players to study prior to practice.  Your team time vs the scout team offense will be filmed, and you can evaluate that film after practice.

A sample Tuesday video might look something like this – In this sample I just give the intro and run through a few plays… the actual script video from Hudl would be 20+ plays long depending on the day of the week.

Position Group Reminders

As part of our Friday routine at the University of Central Missouri, we gave everyone in our position group a written sheet with reminders for that week.

An effective way to reinforce this information would be to attach a video clip and make a screencast (see my post Making a Screen Recording) of those situations.  The expectation would be to review these reminders, both written and video, prior to Friday’s meeting.

Adding the video reminders may increase slightly your prep work time, but I believe the learning benefits will pay off.  The student athlete would be able to access the video on their own device, and review at their own speed.  It incorporates many different learning styles, including audio cues, visual diagrams, straight text description, and game video.

Here is what a sample reminder segment might look like.

Position Group Tests

As part of our Friday routine, we also gave written tests to our position group.

Adding an interactive AV segment to the test would be efficient and productive.  As a coach you could put together a screencast of a video test, with your players completing the written portion on their own prior to Friday meetings, or … even better… take meeting time, and create a truly interactive quiz as Coach Grabowski explains in his post, “On Edge Coaching Pt. 2 and another app”.

A “take home” video test question might look something like this:

A few considerations when implementing “flipped” practice techniques:

• The video does not have to be perfect… if you stress about making the perfect Cecil B. DeMille production every week, you will drive yourself crazy.
• The video does not have to be long – A quick 5 minute video that the student-athletes can replay as many times as they want can be very effective
• The more you can make it cross-platform, the better.  If your student-athletes have to physically go to the library and sit in front of a computer, the less likely they will be to watch the video.  They are used to watching and interacting with their phones… try to use a system that can be viewed on their own device… their phone.
• Many schools are moving to a 1:1 philosophy, where every student will have their own device to receive instructional content.  If your district is moving in that direction, you are in business.
• If you are truly interested in incorporating technology into your teaching and coaching, you need to follow Coach Grabowski’s blog (Coach and Coordinator) and follow his Twitter feed – @CoachKGrabowski… it is the best stuff out there regarding coaching and technology.

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

• Travel Agent
• Real Estate Agent
• Car Dealership

The reason these jobs have undergone drastic changes in the last few years is because of easy access to information.  Any individual can easily get online and book their own airline ticket, search the MLS for comps in their area, or find out the exact dealer cost of a new car and every option available.

Three different pieces came across my feed this week… all referencing this same thing…. information access, and its effect on our jobs as teachers and coaches.

Chad Frigon, head football coach at Liberty High School sent me an excellent article from the sportscoachingbrain that offered this insight:

“In the old days, coaches were the custodians of the knowledge…. training, planning, preparation, competition, what to eat, when to stretch, what to do at the gym… everything.  Now, anyone can access anything, anytime, from anywhere, and for free.  Kids (and their parents) can now access the same information that coaches can.  The traditional coach-driven, coach-centered learning method, i.e. coach tells- athletes do, is doomed to failure.

Successful coaches must create learning environments where athletes learn through problem solving, decision making, being engaged and excited by learning experiences and by collaborating with coaches and their teammates on making training stimulating, effective and efficient.”

Author Seth Godin discussed information access in his recent post, “Freedom of Information Act”:

“Traditionally, many car dealerships are based on a simple idea: they know more about cars and pricing and profit than the customer does.  By leveraging the information advantage, they can sell cars at a higher markup, upsell add ons, etc.

But what happens when the customers know more than they do, when potential customers know about every option, the inventory at every dealer, etc?

This is going to happen to every business, every sector, every level. When information is set free, does it help you or hurt you?

If it’s not helping you, this is a good time to change your model.”

And Coach James Vint talked about the importance of “why” with today’s athlete’s in his excellent post, “Building a Championship Culture”:

“The first thing we did was talk to them about the why. This is why we are going to coach you on this. This is why we have to do it this way. Kids today need to know “why” something is done a certain way. Once they understand the why, they will buy into the “what” and the “how”….when you are teaching a 10 yard stop route, do you accept an eight yard route? Or, do you correct and reteach? Do your players know why you have to get to 10 yards on that route? Do they know “why” they have to perform the skill?”

Our job, or at least certain aspects of it, has changed and will continue to do so.  We can either embrace technology, or fight it.

If you want to embrace technology, here are some resources to help get you thinking:

• The Playbook is Dead, Long Live the Playbook!
• On Edge Coaching
• Flipping the Practice Field
• The Playbook of the Future
• Checking for Understanding
• sportscoachingpbrain
• Utilize Technology to Teach and Coach
• Building a Championship Culture

If you want to fight technology, I am afraid it is a losing proposition.

Thanks to PrepsKC (the information source of Kansas City High School football) for running todays post as part of their Coach’s Corner.  If you get a chance, please visit and “Like” the post!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

I spent the last two days assembling about 12 units … about 37 cartons… of stuff from IKEA.  I am now fluent in the Swedish language.  Besta, Pax, Inreda, etc…

Stay with me now… there is an analogy coming.  Although it involved quite a lot of complex assembly, and took the better part of two days, everything went together perfectly.  Here is the amazing thing….Out of this stack of manuals (playbooks if you may) there was not a single written word!

All pictures… quite detailed, complex, (3D) pictures… but still… only pictures.

Football is a complex game.  Every play has dozens… hundreds … of variables.  How many words do you use in your playbook? How good are your drawings or diagrams?  What if you included better pictures…  or video… or both?

I am sure IKEA uses pictures (and not words) because their instructions can be understood in any language.  Although you may not have players who speak different languages on your squad, you DO have players who have different learning styles… visual, written, auditory, kinesthetic, etc… Written words and simple diagrams are not the only way… the best way… to reach and teach your entire squad.  Look at these posts for ideas on tweaking your playbook, coaching, and teaching with readily available technology:

• Using Technology to Teach and Coach – Coach Keith Grabowski
• Flipping the Practice Field – Me
• “On Edge” Coaching plus an App to Maximize it – Coach Keith Grabowski
• The Playbook is Dead! Long Live the Playbook! – Me
• The Playbook of the Future – Coach Keith Grabowski
• Technology and Teaching – Me
• Maximizing Practice Time – Coach Keith Grabowski
• Checking for Understanding - Me
  

Other lessons from my two-day IKEA binge…

Believe in the Playbook

Assembly, although complex, was simple… why… follow the instructions (playbook).  Every time I had problems, it was because I made a mistake following the instructions.  The playbook was good… I made some errors.

Teamwork

Each finished unit (team), although beautiful when assembled correctly, was just a bunch of dissimilar unconnected pieces (players) at the beginning.  Only through hard work with each piece (player) fitting correctly and doing its job (assignment), and following the instructions (playbook) did the final unit (True Team) come together.

This door had about 200 pieces and looked nothing like glass sliding wardrobe doors when I began.

Championship Culture

The quality control at IKEA is unbelievable.  I had  37 boxes which included a total of 405 parts.  Each box came with the EXACT number of pieces needed to complete the project… not 1 extra screw, not 1 screw short… exactly the right amount in every box.  This quality has been built from the top, much like Coach Vint described in his post, Building a Championship Culture:

“When you build culture, the expectations have to be clear and concise. When we stood in line, or were in front of the coaches, we had clear expectations. We stand with our eyes and chin up, chest spread, and hands behind our back. When we take a knee, we will put our left knee down with our hands on our right knee. If we said your t-shirt hangs on the right hook and your shorts are on the left, that’s where we expected them to be. If they weren’t, we retrained and reminded them.  That is the expectation. There was no exception.”

I think IKEA is clear on what their expectations are – and they don’t make exceptions.

Hard work pays off!

From what I gather, assembly, set up, delivery charges range from $80 an hour up.  As I mentioned it took me the better part of two days – about 12 hours a day – to finish this bedroom project.  That figures out to be about $1,900 I earned (saved) doing this project myself… and I had fun (really) and learned a lot!  Here are a couple of pics of the finished project…

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

That being said, there are a handful of folks that I follow religiously on Twitter, LinkedIn, and various blog sites.  All of these professionals deliver consistently good information and are great resources.  Here are my “follow” recommendations:

Seth Godin – (Twitter  @ThisIsSethsBlog -  Blog – sethgodin.typepad.com ) Godin is a business and marketing guru.  I read his blog daily.  It is always interesting, usually thought provoking, and often is a concept that I can apply as a teacher and coach.  He does have an app (Seth Godin App) that allows you to get his daily blog posts on your mobile device.

Keith Grabowski

(Twitter @CoachKGrabowski -Blog - coachgrabowski.wordpress.com)  Coach Grabowski is the Offensive Coordinator at Baldwin Wallace University.  Although he does not post new content every day, his posts are ALWAYS useful information that can immediately be applied in your daily coaching.  He is a great example of an excellent coach that embraces new technology and teaching methods.  His information is “cutting edge” – he provides real life examples on how you can integrate technology as a coach and teacher. His posts on developing leadership are excellent as well.

Erin Luong

(Twitter @EHordyskiLuong) Erin is school counselor and Rugby Coach.  Her tweets are full of great resources for educators, and often include ideas on implementing technology in the classroom.

Jason Belzer

(Twitter @JasonBelzer) Jason is a sports attorney who represents coaches.  He also is a writer for Forbes, and a Professor of Sports Business at Rutgers.  If you want to keep up with the latest news regarding litigations in all levels of all sports, Jason is the guy.

Tony Courville

(Twitter @TonyCourville) Coach Courville is a Football/ Strength and Conditioning coach at Teurling Catholic High School. His tweets for the athletes at his school fire me up daily!

Tony DeMeo

(LinkedIn) Tony is a former head college football coach and currently the CEO at TD Enterprise.  Tony shares offensive football information daily via LinkedIn.

There are many other professionals who I “follow” and often get great information from.  The above recommendations deliver consistently great content.

Who do you “follow”?  I would love to hear any recommendations from you – just comment below or shoot me an email.

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com